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Every human body consists of about 10 quadrillion cells, but about 100 quadrillion bacterial cells. They are, in short, a big part of us. From the bacteria's point of view, of course, we are a rather small part of them.
每個人體大約由1億億個細胞組成，但它卻是大約10億億個細菌細胞的寄主。總而言之，細菌是我們的一個很大的組成部分。當然，從細菌的角度來看，我們只是它們的一個很小的組成部分。
Because we humans are big and clever enough to produce and utilize antibiotics and disinfectants, it is easy to convince ourselves that we have banished bacteria to the fringes of existence. Don't you believe it. Bacteria may not build cities or have interesting social lives, but they will be here when the Sun explodes. This is their planet, and we are on it only because they allow us to be.
我們人類個兒大，又聰明，能生產使用抗生素和殺菌劑，因此很容易認為自己快要把細菌滅絕了。別相信那種看法。細菌也許不會建立城市，不會過有意思的社交生活，但它們到太陽爆炸的時候還會在這里。這是它們的行星，我們之所以在這里，是因為它們允許我們在這里。
Bacteria, never forget, got along for billions of years without us. We couldn't survive a day without them. They process our wastes and make them usable again; without their diligent munching nothing would rot. They purify our water and keep our soils productive. Bacteria synthesize vitamins in our gut, convert the things we eat into useful sugars and polysaccharides, and go to war on alien microbes that slip down our gullet.
千萬不要忘記，細菌已經在沒有我們的情況下生活了幾十億年。而要是沒有它們，我們一天也活不下去。它們處理我們的廢料，使其重新有用；沒有它們的辛勤咀嚼，什么也不會腐爛。它們純潔我們的水源，使我們的土壤具有生產力。它們合成我們腸胃中的維生素，將我們吃進去的東西變成有用的糖和多糖，向溜進我們腸胃系統的外來細菌開戰(zhàn)。
We depend totally on bacteria to pluck nitrogen from the air and convert it into useful nucleotides and amino acids for us. It is a prodigious and gratifying feat. As Margulis and Sagan note, to do the same thing industrially (as when making fertilizers) manufacturers must heat the source materials to 500 degrees centigrade and squeeze them to three hundred times normal pressures.
我們完全依靠細菌來采集空氣里的氮，將氮轉化為對我們有用的核苷酸和氨基酸。這是個令人驚嘆而又讓人滿意的業(yè)績。正如馬古利斯和薩根指出的，在工業(yè)上要干同樣的事（比如在生產肥料的時候），工廠必須把原材料加熱到500攝氏度，擠壓到300倍于普通的大氣壓。
